Communications and Outreach Tanzania On-the-Ground Results 1
the agriculture tourism activities. In addition, the owner of a dairy farm has renovated his milking parlor in preparation for tours to his farm. Lastly, the leader of the FINCAMAR
group has constructed three small cabins to house tourists. Bread making
The bakery groups are comprised of women who currently earn their livelihoods through natural resources extraction activities and occasionally manual labor. In El Realejo, the group
is comprised of eight women who primarily fish for shrimp postlarvae and cut mangroves for firewood. The group operates out of a church-owned building that includes an oven used
years ago by another bread-making group. Working with UCA personnel, the current group repaired the oven, roof, and doors and built tables and installed equipment. SUCCESS
provided the first batch of bread baking ingredients—used in eight short training events with the women. A final training in April 2008 is on the topic of hygiene in bakingthe bakery.
The group is realizing a “profit”—with 25 of the donated flour still remaining, the group has not only recouped the costs of the first ingredients but has also reserved US50 to
reinvest in new materials. The bakery group in Puerto Morazan is comprised of 13 women who previously made their
living by de-heading shrimp during the fishing season. This livelihood has become less and less viable, however, as wild shrimp have become more scarce. When these women saw the
bakery at FINCAMAR, they saw the opportunity to diversify their work and income and requested assistance to start a bakery. This effort is co-funded by LORRNICA and
SUCCESS. This group, unlike the others, began with no resources. First, it campaigned to successfully obtain a piece of land from the Mayor’s office and has now been granted the
title. In February and March, the women and a carpenter constructed the oven, roof, floor, doors and equipment. The women have also contributed 1,500 roofing tiles. When
construction is completed, training will begin. The established bakery at FINCAMAR, which has served as the model for the other groups,
has faced several challenges. It lost a key member book keeper and treasurer who immigrated to El Salvador. Also, as a result of drastically increased prices of flour, the group
no longer bakes wheat bread. Rather, they now produce only corn products. Since their group size is reduced, they will be integrated into training events held in Puerto Morazan. This will
include having the FINCAMAR group train new bakers in making corn products.
Alternative management of the cockle fishery
While the original group remains enthusiastic and continues to comply with the no-take zones, one family from outside the community has been fishing in one of the no-take zones.
The current no-take zones are only voluntary community agreements endorsed by MARENA afor “experimental” purposes. Although a meeting was held with that family, they continue
to collect there. As a result, the community established a fourth no-take zone so they would continue to have three intact zones. They will also continue to monitor the no-take zone
where the offending family continues to fish. March marked the 18-month period since the no-take zones were established. Monitoring was conducted at the standard monitoring points
inside and outside the no-take zones, as well as at an additional five sample points in the
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other areas of the estuary that were part of the original baseline. Six hundred sixty-one cockle specimens were weighed and measured and the data is now being summarized and analized.
There have been problems with the women who hold permits to sell cockles. Without warning, local government restricted them from taking cockles outside the area to sell—
although there has been no announcement from the government of a change in the law. This turn of events is of great concern to these women who depend on the cockles as their main
livelihood and source of income. The change appears to be a local, arbitrary decision rather than a change in national regulation. UCA personnel met with the Director of Aquaculture of
the Fisheries Institute INPESCA to request help in resolving the situation. However, no assistance was provided. The women suggested holding a protest that would blockade the
main highway a common practice in Nicaragua. To avoid disturbances, UCA helped organize a meeting of the town committee and four representatives of the cockle gathering
group, which then sent a letter to MARENA with copies to the police, INPESCA and UCA. The situation remains unresolved and the annual closed season for cockles April 15-July 15
is about to begin. However, UCA will continue to follow up with the hope of resolving the issue by the time the closed seasons ends so that the women can then continue selling
cockles. A presentation was made to the community on the causes of environmental degradation as
part of the general program of environmental education. Additional outreach work to the government agencies is also planned to promote alternative management concepts no-take
zones, size limits, changes in closed season dates once existing data is analyzed and if it verifies our expectations and anecdotal evidence of positive ecological performance
outcomes. The CRSP program is providing 30,000 to the alternative management efforts to focus on
more intensive water quality monitoring to identify “safe” shellfish collection areas and locations for depurating cockles. Laboratory experiments will elucidate depuration rates for
this species. Preliminary studies indicate that shellfish certified as “safe” may have a price advantage; the SUCCESS work will follow-up with marketing trials and cost-benefit analysis
of the work once cockles have been successfully depurated. This certification would be similar to that already being conducted by shrimp farms with UCA’s assistance. In addition
to testing methods which can benefit shellfish collectors and consumers throughout LAC, the work also provides direct health and economic benefits to those supporting management
efforts in Aserradores.